Cases - Barings plc v Coopers & Lybrand
Record details
- Name
- Barings plc v Coopers & Lybrand
- Date
- [2001]
- Citation
- EWCA Civ 1163
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Expert witness - Civil Evidence Act 1972
- Summary
-
In part of the litigation relating to the liquidation of Barings, following the Leeson scandal (in which the bank sustained heavy losses through fraudulent practices by one of its employees), Barings objected to the calling of expert evidence about banking management. Barings argued that criticism of their management, based on opinion, was not expert evidence. The court held that the overall purpose of expert evidence is to enable the court to reach a fully informed decision.
'It is for the party seeking to call expert evidence to satisfy the court that expert evidence is available which would have a bearing on the issues which the Court has to decide and would be helpful to the Court in coming to a conclusion on those issues.'
Further:
'... expert evidence is admissible under section 3 of the Civil Evidence Act 1972 in any case where the Court accepts that there exists a recognised expertise governed by recognised standards and rules of conduct capable of influencing the Court's decision on any of the issues which it has to decide and the witness to be called satisfies the Court that he has a sufficient familiarity with and knowledge of the expertise in question to render his opinion potentially of value in resolving any of those issues'.
However,
'Evidence meeting this test can still be excluded by the Court if the Court takes the view that calling it will not be helpful to the Court in resolving any issue in the case justly.'
In this case, the court was satisfied that there was a
'body of expertise with recognised standards in relation to the management of investment banks'.
It would be:
'very significant that this is an area of commerce which is highly regulated, practitioners in which are required to be licensed by the regulator and in respect of which the regulator has prescribed standards of prescribed competence'.
The court did not think that the validity of the evidence was destroyed because the experts also appeared to answer the 'ultimate issue' about whether the defendants were negligent. Nor were criticisms of the experts’ 'forceful language' enough to prevent them being called:
'If it emerges from the cross-examination of the Defendants experts on banking practice that the views they have expressed are overly tendentious and partisan that would go to undermine the authority of those views in the eyes of the Court. These objections are not a reason for striking out any part of the Defendant's expert reports at this stage.'